


reflection (the highest degree of self hatred)

by onlyangels



Series: jeremy heere’s deteriorating mental health [1]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Dissociation, Gen, Implied Suicide Attempts, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Memory Issues, can be read as romance? maybe?, it gets really cheesy at the end sorry, i’m really just projecting, mildly graphic descriptions of said suicide attempts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 04:19:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17114342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyangels/pseuds/onlyangels
Summary: In which dissociation leads to sporadic memory loss and the world seems to be folding in on itself (aka a look into Jeremy’s brain and his relationship with Michael).





	reflection (the highest degree of self hatred)

**Author's Note:**

> This is genuinely just a projection of my feelings as of late. Kinda dramatized, not really. Enjoy my internalized suffering projected onto Jeremy.  
> (Unedited and totally open to constructive criticism and please let me know if you’d like me to dive deeper into this?)

There was this twisting feeling in his stomach. His hair stood up on the back of his neck and his fingers tapped an uncertain rhythm on his thigh. Bleary eyed and nervous, Jeremy shifted in his seat, waiting for the bell to ring. A droning voice lecture him on Orwell and the meaning of free speech. Jeremy banished the thoughts of his head, his thoughts, being manipulated, all with his unknowing (that’s a lie) consent. He couldn’t think about anything, not the scratch of a voice in his ear, or the movement in his peripheral vision. Nothing was there, but the hair on his neck begged to differ. 

The feeling hadn’t gone away all day, even when the seats around him filled up and mindless chatter breezed around him every hour and a half. Dragging his hands through his hair he pulled lightly. Again. Stop. His hands went flying to his lap. Held together tightly by the other. 

The bell rang over an hour later and Jeremy hung back, waiting for the halls to clear to make his exit. His head hurt like a jackhammer has been glued to his skull, he twisted his hands again, cracking his knuckles and clenching then in a mindless pattern. His breathing was uneven, he vaguely registered it as a panic attack, he kept walking through the exit, and into the gloomy afternoon. 

His bus passed by him in the parking lot. Typical. Outside was filled with a biting chill, he pulled up his sleeves and relished in the painful shivers that pulled at his spine. He walked home with his shoulders hunched to his ears and his eyes unfocused. There was nothing to focus on. His breathing never evened out. 

Jeremy reflected on the day and realized that it was gone. Melted into the recesses of his mind and the utter blankness of his memory terrified him. A phantom shock rang through his spine. 

Pitiful. 

His mind was failing him and he felt like an outsider looking in, watching himself crumble under the weight of his self made worthlessness. 

Pathetic. 

A PT cruiser was in his drive way. Nope. Not happening. Not today, Satan! 

He turned on his heel and walked away, taking an unknown route in his little shit hole corner of New Jersey. Fuck. This. Shit. His burst of energy dissipated as soon as his mind decided to clear the fog ever so slightly. 

He was tossed into a whirlwind of the past year. A bathtub filled with blood. A phone cracking against tile. Michael grabbing his hand and pulling him. Jeremy walking away. The window of the PT cruiser cracked and Michael’s fist cut wide open with its shards. Back to the bathtub. Instead of blood the water was a light pink, a towel lay next to it. Black? Or just so drenched in blood that it appeared black? Another frantic phone call and Jeremy leaning his head against the back of an ambulance. The blue of a hospital gown, a telephone wire held between his fingers, a missed call that tore at his chest. 

He and Michael had had an eventful year. Their senior year was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be a fresh start. The summer had been awkward and painful in the same way that Jeremy’s stomach started to twist in class. The beginning of senior year led to nothing new but depressive episode after depressive episode without reprieve. Oh! And the anxiety too! Don’t forget about that sucker! 

Jeremy had tried to kill himself twice in the past four months. Both the same way, one attempt more successful than the other. Both rather disastrous. Both rather heartbreaking in their results. He felt like a Donna Tartt character, for how Michael and him stopped talking again, their relationship split into a million shards of missing memories. Broken. Damaged like the people in those books. 

They didn’t exactly stop talking. They held polite conversation. Michael continuously looked more and more sleep deprived and Jeremy consistently had to ask for the date. Oh, and what was his last name again? 

Jeremy couldn’t stop melting for the life of him and he couldn’t blame it on anything but himself. No, he couldn’t blame it on a Keanu Reeves blow up doll or the hands pressing down on his hips, asking him if he wanted to keep going because, no he did not. He could only blame himself. 

Disgusting. 

Jeremy Heere was absolutely, without a doubt, completely and utterly fucked. His acne bit his skin, his slouch was unattractive, he fidgeted, he stuttered, he dressed like he was forty years old and had a car he couldn’t pay off. He looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the person staring back. His memory was failing him as his days grew more intense, his brain becoming muddled and his self esteem going down the drain along with his sanity became a often as the sun rose. 

He couldn’t keep his thoughts straight. Huh. Straight. Let’s not think about that. 

A missed call and the rejected hand holds and the - 

Shit. 

A PT cruiser slowed to a stop next to him. The window rolled down and Michael, looking to all the world like he was half a step away from death, honest to god smiled at him. His eyes crinkled and he waved Jeremy over. Jeremy obeyed, his heart stuttering and his hands twisting. 

Jeremy didn’t even try to focus on a thought, a feeling, an anything. He was too far gone in Michael’s voice, what could he say? It grounded him, reminded him he existed, he hadn’t heard it often enough lately. 

“Jeremy, it’s raining.” Oh, it was. A drizzle really, but his eyes couldn’t focus on the feeling, it could have been pouring and it wouldn’t have noticed. Another shock drilled into his spine, he stood ramrod straight for a moment, his eyes meeting Michael’s. Fear set in. 

Why was there something odd about Michael’s expression? His smile was - oh. It didn’t reach is eyes quite right. 

Jeremy reached for the door handle. He slipped into the seat, his eyes darting to the floor. Michael’s hand reached to his. 

The twisting feeling in his stomach stopped. Jeremy found that he could focus for just a moment, he thought that if he were to die, he’d be happy to do so right here. 

Michael’s smile still didn’t reach his eyes, but he drove Jeremy home. He walked with him to his room and they sat, trading vague stories from the past week, Jeremy told vague lies, Michael saw straight through them. He pointedly refused to call him out on it. 

Could that be considered friendship? 

Not the time to be delving into that thought. Jeremy squeezed Michael’s hand instead, letting the haziness clear. 

He could finally pinpoint an emotion, god knows how long it had been since he had last felt something, something real. 

Jeremy held it out in his mind, as he held Michael’s hand, he examined it, realizing it was a soft feeling in his chest. It calmed the twist in his stomach and the bad thoughts, the references to depressing literature, it faded. 

Michael and him still couldn’t talk and meet each other’s eyes at the same time. Jeremy still had a scarred line cutting right into his veins. There was still the gut wrenching phone call. The hands on his body, unrelenting, even as he willed them to stop. Jeremy Heere was far from healed, he was far from recovery, but for once, for once he felt something he hadn’t in the past four months. He held the feeling, it was content. 

Michael’s voice came back to him again. 

“You wanna grab a slushee, man?” 

Jeremy wanted to cry at the normalcy of the question, instead he nodded and allowed himself to be dragged outside again. 

He hoped that the white haze wouldn’t wipe this memory away, he willed the feeling to remain, to not flee at the sight of life. Jeremy needed to live to survive, so he let the twisting subside, let it hide, as content filled in the blanks, he filled in the rest with Michael’s hand in his.


End file.
